SED Signatures of Jovian Planets Around White Dwarf Stars

Abstract

The problem of detecting Jovian-sized planets orbiting White Dwarf stars is considered. Significant IR excesses result from warm Jupiters orbiting a White Dwarf of $T_{\rm eff}=10000$ K at a distance of $\sim 10^3$ White Dwarf radii (corresponding to $\sim 10^2$ Jupiter radii or a few tenths of an AU) with an orbital period of $\sim 100$ days. Such a planet will have a 10 micron flux density at its Wien peak that is comparable to the emission of the White Dwarf at that wavelength. Although the White Dwarf is much hotter than the planet, the planet will have peak brightness at the IR, well into the Rayleigh-Jeans tail of the White Dwarf, plus Jovians are about 10 times larger than White Dwarfs, so there is a substantial gain in the planet to star brightness contrast as compared to planets around Main Sequence stars. In the solar neighborhood, there are 51 White Dwarf stars within 13 pc of the Sun. At 10 pc, the IR flux density of ``warm'' Jupiters (a few hundred Kelvin) will fall in the range 10--100 micro-Jansky which should be observable with {\it SIRTF}.